


how much I miss feeling love...what I truly loved is slowly disappearing

by glowingbluesketches



Series: Alexandra and Anya [1]
Category: Anastasia (1997), Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: Angst, Crying, Drabble, F/M, Historical References, Hurt/Comfort, Sad with a Happy Ending, Tears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 09:53:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13831707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glowingbluesketches/pseuds/glowingbluesketches
Summary: Anya looked like she had been struck with lightning, staring up at blue eyes exactly like hers.





	how much I miss feeling love...what I truly loved is slowly disappearing

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of based on the rumours during the mid 1900s that two Romanov daughters had survived the massacre. The title is from the Spanish version of Once Upon a December, sang by Thalia.

"Hello, miss, can you help me?"

That was the first time she had heard her voice _in years._  

Anya had spun around so fast that she had nearly gave herself whiplash. Dimitri, who had been pointing at a Parisian cafe down the street, came to a halt and turned to his wife to ask what had made her stop when his breathe caught in his throat.

A splitting image of Anya stood in front of them, but much more taller and her hair darker then his spouses. He would have passed her off as a doppelganger, someone who looked like his wife but wasn't, if it wasn't for what had caught his attention; a pair of startling blue Romanov eyes.

Anya looked like she had been struck with lightning, staring up at blue eyes exactly like hers.

"I-I-" Anya spluttered. The woman stares at her, blinking, clueless.

"I'm sorry but do I know you?" she looks uncomfortable now. Dimitri doesn't blame her.

"My apologies." he murmurs. "What would you like some help with?"

"I was just wondering if you knew any places I can eat. I've just arrived from Russia this morning, on the last train before they closed the last border. I didn't have time to pick up a pamphlet at the station."

Oh god. Dimitri gulped, not knowing what to say to this very familiar Russian woman, before his wife spoke up, shakily; "We were just heading to a nice cafe for lunch. Join us, won't you?"

"Oh I don't want to impose-" the woman starts.

"It's no trouble!" Anya insists. "Really."

"Well, all right." Dimitri points out the cafe yet and Anya power walks there, making her husband and their guest try and keep up. "For someone so short she is fast." the woman whispers to him as they step inside.

Dimitri can only smile.

They get a window seat; Anya and Dimitri on one side and the woman on the other. "So, what is your name Miss-?"

The woman looks up from buttering her bread. "Alexandra." she smiles; a smile that makes Anya's stomach lurch. "No surname."

Anya makes a noise in the back of her throat and Dimitri has to fight the urge to kick her under the table.

"Dimitri, this is Anya." he introduces them for his wives sake.

"Excuse me, bathroom." she babbles before she stands and practically sprints to use the bathroom. Dimitri was certain he saw tears well up in her eyes as she passed him. The minute she was out of sight he leaned forward, catching Alexandra's attention.

"I'm so sorry about her. My wife thought you were her sister. She died years before, and she misses her."

Alexandra gives him a look of pity. "I understand."

"So you said you were from Russia?" Dimitri picks up his own loaf and begins to butter it with the knife given to them.

She nodded with a soft smile. "Yes, Yekaterinburg originally. I don't remember anything before that."

Dimitri nodded, even though he wanted to jump up and scream her real name. The name belonging to the sister Anya remembers her being.

"I'm from Petersburg, born and raised. So is Anya."

"I knew you were both from Russia!" she laughs. "Oh, how did you two meet?"

"In a parade." he looks up at her just as she flinches and leans back, looking out of the window with a far away look in her eyes.

"A parade..." she repeats, and that was when Dimitri knew that just like Anya, they could pull out the memories of the Grand Duchess this woman used to be.

(~~)

"Here you go." Dimitri passed over the spare pillow to their new friend, who accepted it with a smile as she laid down on their sofa under the blanket already produced for her. "Well, goodnight."

"Goodnight." he left her alone to sleep in their living room and headed to the bedroom he shared with his wife. The same wife who was standing at the window in her blue nightgown, staring out into the dark Parisian night. 

It had been her idea to offer Alexandra temporary stay at their apartment until she could get on her feet. The woman had hugged Anya in gratitude, and Dimitri noticed the tear rolling down his wives cheek at the contact.

"I thought about introducing her to Nana, hoped that meeting her will bring back more memories." she whispers, not even turning around to see him tug of his pants and socks, leaving them on the floor until the morning where she would surely make him place them in the hamper.

Ah yes, more memories.

Because before Anya had definitely held herself back from confirming if she was who she thought it was, until during their walk through the park on the way back, Anya had-seeing the opportunity-chased some pigeons into the air. Alexandra had laughed, and said the one nickname no one else would have known; _"Oh, Shibvsk!"_

When he had asked why Alexandra had called her that, while comforting his sobbing wife, the poor confused woman had only replied; "I don't know. We always called her that because she's our imp. Aunt Olga called her Malenkaya."

She didn't remember she had even said that five hours later, when he had asked where she had heard of that.

Dimitri knew from then on that Alexandra's memory loss wasn't from the same source as his wives; Anya's was caused from a head wound by a butt of a bayonet, Alexandra's had been caused by psychological trauma.

"I don't think that's a good idea." he coughed.

"Why not?" she swivelled around to look at him. "If she remembers, remembers _me_ , we can finally be a family again. I won't be alone."

Dimitri walked towards his wife, shrugging off his brown overcoat and throwing it over the chair in the corner of the room. "I know, I understand."-he rolled down his sleeves and unbuttons his shirt-"But look what your restored memories have done to you!" he throws the shirt in the chair's general direction, picking up the pajama pants that had been laying over the beds railing and tugging them on as he walked.

She winces, and Dimitri wished he hadn't said that.

The nightmares.

Of Bolshevik soldiers storming into the small basement room. Clinging to her sister screaming in fright. The blood, the pain...

Sometimes it was just her dead family standing around her bed, watching her, as pale as their corpses.

Either way she woke up screaming, thrashing, yelling for help. For her Mama and Papa. For Olga. For Tatiana. For Maria. For Alexei. For him. For Dima.

It was that nickname she used now.

"Dima, I need my sister back." she whispers. "To help the memories go away."

Yes, because sometimes remembering is a curse.

"Anya." he takes her into his arms. "Who are you?"

The question catches her off guard, but she answers anyway. "Your wife."

"Who are you?" he asks again.

"I'm Anastasia Nikolaevna Sudayeva." she replies this time, standing as straight as she could.

"And-?" he waits, as patiently as he always does.

"I am-Anya." she breathes. He smiles as she finally understands what he has been trying to tell her.

"You're Anya, just like she is Alexandra." he squeezes her arms in reassurance. "She may remember one day, but until then, we don't push her. We wait, and when that day comes, you'll understand and be relieved that you didn't force her to remember."

Her pulls her into a hug that lasts for a few minutes, but it said everything. When he pulls away and goes to bed, she leaves, heading straight for the kitchen, leaving his deep snores behind. A glass of water would do her some good, clear her head.

She picks up a cup and holds it under the tap, letting cold water fill the glass. Footsteps behind her makes her turn to see Alexandra, hair out of its chignon to tumble around her shoulders, the borrowed pink nightgown that belonged to Anya only reaching her knees unlike it did on her.

"Anastasia, what are you doing?" she was clearly sleepwalking, standing in the doorway of the kitchen, groggily mumbling under her breath. "You know you're not allowed to leave your room after dark. At least you're not playing another prank, remember when Alexei placed a strawberry into that woman's foot? He wasn't allowed back at the dinner table for a month."

She shakes her head and turns, walking back into the living room, muttering about Mama and Papa and 'lessons tomorrow' all the way.

Anya smiles. "Goodnight, Alexandra."

"Goodnight, Anya."

**Author's Note:**

> Which sister she is is up to you to decide. Personally I wrote her as Maria, but I made it so you can decide yourself.


End file.
